


The Chosen

by Lbilover



Series: The Chosen Series [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Vampires, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 00:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Sean becomes the chosen of a vampire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first time I ever listened to October Project's haunting song 'Take Me As I Am', probably back in 2004 or 2005, I envisioned it as a Sean/Elijah vampire story (not my usual thing). It wasn't until fairly recently that the songwriter, Marina Belica, meant it to be a vampire romance. Needless to say, that made me pretty happy.

~*~

He tells himself he won’t go back there again.

But he sleepwalks through his day, working just hard enough to get by, until the clock in his office cubicle reaches 5 p.m. Then he grabs his briefcase and bolts, ignoring the quizzical looks of his coworkers who’ve been asking him lately if everything is all right.

He has no answer for himself, much less for them.

In his small apartment, he showers, shaves with care until every trace of five o’clock shadow is erased, splashes on an expensive cologne, and dresses in new clothes that cost more than his meager salary can really justify. He studies his reflection in the mirror as he adjusts the collar of a dark green silk shirt. A reminiscent tremor runs through him, and he closes his eyes and turns away.

Driving through the busy downtown streets, he plays a game with himself. _At the next intersection I’ll make a u-turn and head home_ , he vows. _Okay then, the next intersection, it’ll definitely be the next intersection_. But block follows block until he’s reached his destination without so much as slowing; once again, he’s lost every hand in his mental game of willpower. The question remains: does he want to win?

The club is located in a renovated brick warehouse on a seedy side street in the old industrial area down by the river. It’s the sort of place he’d never have discovered on his own, and he alternates between passionately cursing and passionately thanking the friend who first dragged him there, protesting every step of the way.

_C’mon, Sean, don’t be such an old lady. It’ll be fun. You never know—maybe you’ll meet somebody nice._

Nice. A description he once would have found attractive.

A few people are hanging around outside the poorly lit entrance smoking cigarettes. He ignores them. Already he can hear the faint but insistent bass beat of pounding dance music coming from the building. It acts like a narcotic, entering his bloodstream with a rush, turning him jittery, impatient, totally unlike his usual cautious, methodical self.

He shows his ID to the bouncer at the door and goes inside. The heat of the overcrowded room hits him like a blow, but the darkness, relieved only by the pulsing strobe lights above a circular dance floor filled with the weirdly distorted bodies of dancers weaving to the deafening thrum of a song he doesn’t recognize, welcomes him into its embrace. Against his will, he’s beginning to love the darkness.

He pushes and elbows his way to the bar and shouts an order for a double Scotch, neat, above the din. He grabs the tumbler from the bartender, downs the contents in one lightning swallow, slaps a ten on the sticky counter, and with the liquor burning unholy fire in his gut, heads for the dance floor.

He joins the circle of men and women who form a ring around the dancers, and his eager eyes immediately seek and find the sole reason for his presence here, the flickering flame that draws him moth-like toward it even at the risk of self-immolation: a slender young man in black leather pants and a flowing white shirt, dancing barefoot in the center of the floor.

Sean lets out the pent-up breath he’s been holding. He’s dancing alone. He hasn’t yet chosen a partner.

A quick glance around shows that he's not the only one who has come there hoping to partner the solitary dancer. Nearly every person in the circle is watching him with expressions that are sharp, avid and hungry, like his own. His rivals. At that moment Sean hates them with as much intensity as they no doubt hate him and each other.

The mesmerizing form is moving sinuously beneath the slowly spinning glitter ball suspended from the ceiling, while around him others gyrate like planets around a sun. But as far as Sean is concerned, there _is_ no one else on the dance floor; the others are merely shadows, indistinct and unmemorable. He only has eyes for _him_. And he wants to be his chosen. God, how he wants it. Needs it.

If the young man is aware of how closely he's being watched, he gives no sign. In the bursts of dazzling white strobe light, Sean sees that his eyes are closed, curving lashes forming dark crescents on cheeks pale as Grecian marble. His head is tilted slightly back so that his dark hair, unfashionably overlong, falls in a silken tangle to his shoulder blades. The arch of his exposed throat as it appears and disappears in the flashes of light taunts Sean, and his half-open mouth, crimson as fresh blood, fills Sean with a mad desire to crush it beneath his own. He knows exactly how it will feel and taste.

He moves with the unconscious assurance of a trained ballet dancer; every line, every gesture, is precise and perfect. The supple black leather moulds like a second skin to his thighs, hips and flexing buttocks, and subtly emphasizes the bulge at his crotch. The filmy gauze shirt is unbuttoned halfway; it billows open as he pivots on the ball of his foot, revealing glimpses of coral pink nipples.

No erotic striptease could have been half so arousing as these tantalizing hints at what lies beneath his attire, and the unholy fire in Sean’s gut spreads, licking through his veins until he’s broken out in a sweat and is breathing as fast as if he is the one dancing. A fine tension hums through him like a wire stretched to breaking point, but he is held immobile, unable to take a single step until the choice is made.

He never knows when it will be made, or why. But he knows that if for the first time he is passed over for some other, he might completely lose his senses and run howling into the night.

When the choice is made, it happens with heart stopping, almost inhuman suddenness. One moment the young man is moving with balletic grace, the next, quicker than an eye can blink, he’s standing perfectly still with his eyes fully open and his hand outstretched.

To Sean.

“Come, dance with me,” he says, and Sean hears each word, softly spoken in a curious, impossible to pinpoint accent, clearly and distinctly even through the din around them.

He stumbles and almost falls in his fevered haste to comply. He takes the outstretched hand, and its very coolness as it closes strongly around his only inflames him the more, as he imagines how it will feel later on his overheated skin.

“Elijah.” He croaks the name, the only name he has for him. He feels leaden and stupid, unworthy of this honor he’s been given.

Elijah smiles, the crimson lips parting to show a hint of white teeth like a promise of ecstasy to come. Sean’s blood thunders through his veins, the pounding of his pulse nearly drowning out the music. “Dance with me,” he says again.

They dance. Sean starts out clumsily, cursing himself for his lumbering ineptitude beside Elijah’s thistledown lightness. But consciousness of self vanishes under the influence of Elijah’s eyes, huge and dark as midnight, the most extraordinary eyes Sean has ever seen in his life. They hold his without blinking until he loses himself in their fathomless depths, and falls a willing victim to their spell. From that moment on nothing exists but Elijah and the music that thrums through him.

Like the princesses in the fairy tale, Sean dances and dances, and he loses all track of time as the songs merge one into another. Elijah’s bare feet move in intricate patterns, faster and faster, becoming a pale blur, and Sean matches each move with an effortless ease that would astonish the everyday Sean who dwells in another world and lives a different life. But that Sean has now vanished without a trace, and though they never speak and rarely touch, only fleeting brushes of hands and bodies as they twist and turn, it’s impossible for him to tell anymore where he begins and Elijah ends…

And then the frenetic pace of the music abruptly changes, downshifting to something slower, more languid and intimate. A woman’s deep, sultry voice begins singing.

_Take me as I am_  
_Someone you don't know_  
_Even in the dark_  
_You may not be sure_  
_Take me while you can_  
_I can see you standing in the smoky entrance_  
_Giving up your good intentions_

Elijah slides his arms around Sean’s neck and leans against him. Sean links his fingers at the small of Elijah’s back and they sway slowly back and forth as lovers do. Sean is breathing hard from his exertions; his silk shirt sticks wetly to his chest and back. But Elijah’s heart beats with a steady, slow rhythm—he isn’t even winded.

_Take me as I am_  
_I may disappear_  
_Fade into the night_  
_Lighter than your thoughts_  
_Take me while you can_  
_Never knowing who or what you are until you're_  
_Living with the unfamiliar_

As they slow dance, the song washes over Sean, the words hauntingly familiar from his previous visits here. He knows what they presage, the message they carry, and he tightens his hold on Elijah so that each swaying step acts as a caress, rubbing their groins together. His body responds, cock swelling against a matching hardness. Elijah’s arms tighten and he buries his face in Sean’s neck. His cool lips press against the pulse beating at the base of his throat. Sean slides his hands lower, boldly cupping the firm buttocks naked beneath skintight leather. Elijah moans softly and tongues the pulsing vein. Sean shudders, and he knows it’s almost time.

_Leave the shadows dancing_  
_Dancing on their own_  
_Let the moments free you now_  
_And leave it all behind you_  
_I'll know where you've gone_  
_Let the world go on…_

“Take me home,” Elijah whispers hotly.

He does.

~*~

Sean wakes alone, cursing the sunlight that pours through his bedroom window. Morning has come too soon. He hits the snooze button on his alarm clock and covers his eyes with his forearm, blocking out the light. He lets the memories of the night before play through his mind; the musky odors of sweat and semen fill his nostrils, a pungent reminder of what he’s lost with the coming of the dawn.

When the alarm sounds another remorseless reminder of the workaday world that beckons, Sean reluctantly gets up. He limps stiffly to the bathroom, his sore muscles and tender feet protesting, and climbs in the shower. As he lathers himself with soap, he aches for different hands, cool, firm and sure, on his body, and for silken skin pure and pale as Grecian marble to caress with his own.

Why must the nights be so short and the days so intolerably long?

There is no answer to the question, and the days must be got through, so he lets the familiar dull routine of his mornings take over, until he goes to the mirror to fix his tie and his eyes fall on two small round red marks at the base of his throat.

_’Sean,’ Elijah says. He stares down at Sean, his eyes blazing with blue fire. ‘My beautiful Sean. Mine.’ As he presses home, claiming Sean’s body fully and completely, he stoops his head and sets his crimson lips against the same pulsing vein he’d tongued while they slow danced. This time, his upper lip draws back; razor-sharp white eyeteeth emerge to puncture the vein and Elijah begins drinking greedily of Sean’s blood. Sean arches up off the bed and cries out in rapture, unable to tell, and not caring, whether the rhythmic thrust of Elijah’s silken cock or the rhythmic tug of his suckling mouth is the greater ecstasy. All he knows is that together, they cause an almost unbearable pleasure that builds and builds until he climaxes with blinding intensity, hoarsely calling out Elijah’s name._

Sean comes back to himself with a start. Slowly, with shaking fingers, he buttons the collar of his dress shirt, covering the evidence of Elijah's possession, and fixes his tie.

He picks up his suit jacket and briefcase and lets himself out of his apartment into the sunlit world of everyday, ordinary people. People like him. As he drives to work he wonders what he'd been thinking, allowing himself be drawn into a shadowy netherworld that can only consume and destroy him.

He tells himself that he won’t go back there again.

But he knows he will.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean knows what it's like to want something to the point of madness.

Sean arms the office security system, and as the red light begins to flash, quickly steps through the door and pulls it closed behind him. He walks across the lobby to the exit, his footsteps echoing hollowly on the tile floor. The building is totally deserted at this late hour. Sean is, as he has been all week, the last one to leave. His coworkers are more than ever convinced that something is wrong with him—he’s gone from sprinting out the door on the dot of five to working ridiculous amounts of unpaid overtime.

He wonders what they’d do if they knew the truth, if he said to them, “I stupidly went and fell in love with a vampire. You know, one of the undead? Pointy fangs, likes to suck blood? But he threw me over for someone with a more attractive neck and tastier plasma, and it’s killing me inside.”

Probably have him committed, that’s what. But being committed might actually be preferable to the hell he’s currently enduring. 

He pushes through the lobby doors and discovers that it’s drizzling as predicted on the television that morning. But he’d stupidly forgotten to take his umbrella with him—forgetfulness has become a habit of late. He mentally shrugs. A little rain won’t melt him. He turns up the corduroy collar of his sport jacket and ducks his head before stepping out of the shelter of the lobby entrance into the cool, rain-washed night. He walks quickly across the damp asphalt toward his car, now the lone inhabitant of the company’s employee lot. It’s parked near the far end, just beyond the circle of yellow cast by one of the overhead light fixtures.

He shivers and huddles deeper into his jacket, wishing he’d worn something warmer. While he isn’t as light-headed and woozy as he had been a few days ago, he’s definitely not himself. He normally wouldn’t feel the chill this much—there’s something to be said for being on the stocky side—but tonight it seeps into his very bones. He wonders if he ought to make an appointment to see his doctor. Maybe he’s coming down with something. Don’t they say that your resistance to infection is lowered when you’re stressed out?

Unconsciously his hand strays to his throat, fingers unerringly finding the spot where Elijah had taken his blood. He imagines trying to explain to the doctor how he acquired the marks on his neck—those twin dots that he has studied in the mirror over and over, terrified by the sense of loss he feels as they gradually fade from red to pale pink. No, it’s too risky. He’ll have to take his chances and hope that the weakness will resolve on its own.

_Time heals all wounds…_ If only that were true.

As if it’s a bruise he can’t stop pressing, Sean conjures up the image that has haunted and tormented him for eight interminable days and nights: Elijah in the middle of the dance floor, standing perfectly still beneath the glittering disco ball with his hand outstretched not to Sean, but to someone else—his new chosen, a younger man than Sean and far more good-looking. Sean hadn’t in fact lost his mind and run howling into the night, as he’d feared he might if this moment arrived. But he’d fled at once, unable to bear the sight of them dancing intimately together as he and Elijah had danced. 

He’s read that vampires can compel their victims, place them under some kind of glamour or spell, and he’d hoped that if he stayed away from the club, Elijah’s hold over him would diminish. But it hasn’t, because he never needed to be compelled. Love isn’t a compulsion—it’s a gift that offers itself freely, even if the one to whom it is offered rejects the gift. _Mine_ , Elijah had said, and Sean knows that he is still Elijah’s, and always will be, long after the marks on his neck have disappeared. 

Sean is so lost in thought that it takes a few seconds for the sound of footsteps behind him to penetrate his consciousness. By the time it does, it’s too late. A hand roughly grabs his shoulder and jerks him around. Sean finds himself confronting a knife, a very large butcher knife with a lethal looking point that that is poised mere inches from his chest.

“I want your money, man,” says the guy who’s holding the knife. He brandishes the gleaming stainless steel blade in a threatening gesture. “ _Now_.”

Stringy blonde hair, lank and unwashed, frames a gaunt unshaven face in which dark eyes burn with fanatic intensity. The man is skin and bones, and despite the raw weather, he’s wearing only filthy jeans, flip-flops and a stained white undershirt. The overhead lighting is bright enough here that Sean can clearly make out the scars on his tattooed forearm—track marks. He’s an addict, an addict who is clearly in desperate need of a fix, and Sean has no illusions whatsoever about the extreme danger of this situation. 

Adrenaline is pumping madly through him, filling him with the atavistic urge to fight or flee. But Sean does neither. Instead, he slowly raises his hands, palms out, and says in a calm voice, “Okay. I don’t have much on me, but what I have is yours.”

“Then fucking hand it over. Hurry,” the man says. His eyes dart nervously from side to side. 

“I will—just take it easy.” Sean reaches into his back pocket and removes his leather billfold. He _doesn’t_ have much in it—just a ten and a few singles. Money is tight right now; driven by a need that rivaled anything this addict is experiencing, he’d gone out and dropped an obscene amount of money on designer clothes to impress Elijah. God, he’d been such an idiot.

He removes the bills and holds them out, proud of the steadiness of his hand. “Fourteen dollars is all I’ve got. I’m sorry.”

The man snatches them from Sean’s fingers and stuffs them in his front pocket, but he doesn’t, as Sean had hoped he would, take the money and run. 

“I don’t fucking believe this is all you’ve got, man. I think you’re holding out on me.” He edges in closer, and Sean feels suffocated by the rankness of his unwashed body and his fetid breath. The knife’s point presses hard against his breast. “Fourteen dollars won’t buy me shit. Gimme the rest of your money, asshole.”

Sean breaks out in a cold sweat. It’s not what he sees in the man’s eyes that scares the fuck out of him—it’s what he _doesn’t_ see: any shred of sanity. He’s beyond reason and dangerous as a cornered grizzly bear.

“I’m not holding out on you, I swear,” Sean says. “Look, take my wallet. You can go through it and see for yourself…” He lets out a gasp of more shock than pain as the knife’s point penetrates his clothing and bites into his skin. 

“You’re a fucking liar!” the man yells, spittle flying, and grabs the front of Sean’s coat, bunching the fabric in his fist. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

And he will, too. Sean can see his own death written in the demented expression in his attacker’s eyes. Running is impossible—there’s simply nothing for it but to fight. He lets his wallet drop, seizes the man’s wrist in both his hands and tries to pull the knife away. As he does, the blade rips through his jacket and dress shirt and skitters across his ribs. Burning pain sears through Sean as if he’s been stabbed by a red-hot poker. He barely notices; he’s too busy fighting for his life.

They grapple with each other in near silence, only their grunts and gasps for breath audible. Madness and desperation give his opponent strength beyond what his emaciated body should be capable of, and it’s difficult for Sean to maintain a firm grip on his rain-slick skin. Try as he might, Sean can’t halt the progress of the wavering knife blade that inches up closer and closer to his throat. The tip, tinged scarlet, looms large, filling his vision just as the coppery tang of the blood on it fills his nostrils.

But the closer to death Sean comes, the more preternaturally calm he becomes, as if he’s an observer, witnessing the frantic struggle from the outside. He’s struck by the absolute irony of his situation. Within minutes, seconds maybe, that knife is going to sink into his throat and tear it open, the very same throat he’s willingly offered up to a vampire to drink from. He’ll bleed to death lying alone on the pavement, the cold rain beating on his face... 

What a waste of good blood, he thinks inanely.

A snarl like that of a wildcat being teased at the end of a chain rips through the night air. Out of the corner of his eye, Sean catches a blur of motion, and before he can even process what’s happening, the knife is gone, sent spinning across the parking lot, and the man lets out a high-pitched shriek of agony and staggers back, clutching at his right arm, which now dangles at an unnatural angle. Madness has been replaced by confusion and fear.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” he sobs.

“Dislocated your elbow,” says a quiet, implacable voice that still holds a trace of that wildcat snarl. “For starters.”

Sean is bent forward with his hands on his thighs while he struggles to draw oxygen into his tortured lungs. But at the sound of that voice he straightens abruptly, ignoring the searing pain in his side and the wave of dizziness that assails him. _It can’t be_ , he thinks, dazed. _I must be dreaming._

Then a slender figure steps between him and his attacker, and it’s no dream. It is Elijah. He is dressed all in black and the rain glistens in his tangle of dark hair and on the shoulders and sleeves of his leather jacket. 

“P-Please d-don’t hurt me,” the man stutters. Cradling his useless arm against his chest, he falls to his knees, shaking uncontrollably. “P-Please.”

Sean can’t see Elijah’s expression, but judging from the abject terror in the man’s eyes, it must be scary as shit—like looking into the bowels of hell. Despite what has happened, Sean can’t help but pity the guy, for he’s held fast in the grip of a compulsion he can’t control, and though once Sean might not have been able to empathize, now, god help him, he can.

“Elijah, let him go. He’s suffering enough already,” Sean interjects quickly, before Elijah can strike again with that lethal combination of speed and power that he possesses. 

If Elijah hears him, he makes no sign. He neither moves nor speaks. Sean holds his breath, wondering if he’s about to witness the death of a fellow human being for the first time in his life. He doesn’t doubt for an instant that Elijah is capable of killing without remorse. 

For what seems an eternity, but in reality is only seconds, the man’s fate hangs in the balance.

Then Elijah says softly, “Because Sean asks it of me, I will let you go.”

As if a spell has been broken with the words, the man lets out a sob and awkwardly scrambles to his feet, still cradling his damaged arm against him. With one final, petrified look, as if he’s expecting Elijah to come after him, he takes off at a run. The wet slap of his flip-flops fades as he disappears into the misty darkness.

Elijah turns to Sean. His brow is furrowed, his expression concerned. Rain streaks the pale perfect oval of his face, and a residual fire burns in those unforgettable blue eyes, reminiscent of how he’d looked at Sean in the moments before he bent to nuzzle his neck and take him body and soul. Seeing it now is agony almost beyond enduring, and Sean’s only defense is to lash out, even if his effort is as pitiful as that of a newborn kitten.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Sean asks harshly. 

But Elijah brushes aside his question as if it is no more than a half-hearted swat from a kitten’s paw. His finely cut nostrils flare as they catch the scent of fresh blood, and his eyes fall to the gaping rent in Sean’s jacket. “Sean, you’re hurt,” he exclaims.

“I’m fine. Just leave me alone, Elijah.” Sean stoops and retrieves his wallet, but an involuntary gasp of pain is forced from him as the abrupt movement causes the knife cut to flare into agonizing life. “Shit. _Shit._ ” 

He shoves the wallet in his pocket and presses his hand to his throbbing side. He can’t tell if the wet he feels is water or blood, and he’s afraid to look. Black dots begin to obscure his vision and the wooziness returns full-force. _So much for dramatic exits; I’m going to pass out,_ he thinks, too surprised to be embarrassed, and then an arm like a steel band wraps around his waist and supports him. 

There’s a low hiss by his ear. “I should have killed him for harming you. Why did you ask me to let him go?”

The black dots are rapidly multiplying, like germs under a microscope, blinding him, and Elijah’s voice echoes hollowly as if it’s coming from underwater. 

“Because I know… what it’s like… to want something… to the point… of madness,” Sean mumbles. Then the blackness crashes down with the force of a tidal wave and pulls him under.

~*~

A stinging sensation on his cheek rouses Sean from unconsciousness. An imperative voice says, “Sean. Sean. Wake up.” 

Sean slowly forces his heavy eyelids open, unable to resist the command in that voice. Everything’s blurry at first, but then things start come gradually into focus and he sees Elijah bending over him, his hair falling about his face in damp ringlets. “What happened?” he asks in confusion. 

“You passed out.” 

“Oh, right.” Sean rubs his hands over his face and tries to pull himself together. The last thing he can recall is bending to retrieve his wallet, Elijah’s voice in his ear, and then… nothing. He looks around him and discovers to his surprise that he’s in his apartment, sitting in the easy chair in his living room. “How did I get here?” 

“I carried you.” Elijah makes it sound like no great matter, and Sean supposes that to him it isn’t, even if Sean outweighs him by a good thirty pounds. A shiver runs through him. There’s something distinctly unsettling about the idea of being unconscious and vulnerable like that—and something distinctly arousing, too.

A thought occurs to him. “You didn’t carry me all the way here from where I work, did you? It’s over five miles.”

“I could have, but no, of course not. I drove you here in your car.” 

“I didn’t know you could drive.” Why that should seem surprising, Sean has no idea. But Elijah clearly grew up in a different era, one where cars didn’t exist. He’s wondered what it must be like to live through so much radical change. Did you embrace it or ignore it?

“I’ve been driving since long before you were born,” Elijah replies. “Though, I don’t have a license, and you won’t find my name listed in any computer database.” 

A hint of what appears to be a smile hovers around his mouth, the first Sean has ever seen from him. Somehow he hadn’t imagined a vampire _could_ have a sense of humor. It rattles him, because it makes Elijah seem almost human and likeable, and Sean doesn’t want to like him. It’s bad enough that he’s fallen in love.

“How are you feeling?” Elijah studies him, a vertical line appearing between the dark slashes of his brows.

“I’m all right,” Sean says. In truth, he’s still light-headed and his side hurts like fuck-all, but at least he doesn’t feel in danger of passing out again. “What time is it?” he asks, sitting up straighter and trying not to wince as he does. 

“A little after midnight,” replies Elijah. “Sean, you’re not all right. Don’t lie to me. You’re hurt and I… can help.” His tongue flicks out as if it can already taste Sean’s blood. “I can seal the wound as I do when I’ve finished feeding.”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass. What’s the matter, Elijah? Didn’t your latest victim put out, give you enough of the red stuff?” The words are crude and unforgivably rude, especially considering that Elijah has just saved his life. But for eight days—no, nights, that’s how Elijah counts them, for days have no meaning to one of the undead—Sean had fought to stay away from the club and from Elijah, building walls that he can now see are flimsy as the straw house of the three little pigs. Elijah is so god damn beautiful. One look from those midnight dark eyes is all it has taken to blow his pitiful straw house down.

Elijah regards him in silence for a few moments then says, “You’re angry. Why?” He sounds genuinely puzzled.

Instead of answering, Sean turns the simple question back on him. “Why did you show up at my office tonight, Elijah?” 

Elijah shrugs. Even his shrug is inhumanly graceful. “I wanted to see you. You haven’t been to the club in eight nights, and I’ve missed you.” 

“You don’t honestly expect me to believe that,” Sean scoffs. “You made it very clear you were done with me. So how about you go find your latest fuck toy and drink his blood and leave me the hell alone?”

“I cannot help being what I am.” Some emotion flickers in Elijah’s shadowed eyes. It might be sorrow or regret. “I must feed, Sean, just as you must eat and drink or die.”

Sean hardens his heart. He won’t allow himself to feel sympathy for Elijah, not after being used and discarded by him. “Don’t you mean feed and fuck?” he shoots back. “Let us not forget the fucking part.” His voice is almost shaking with the bitterness and jealousy that claw at his gut, and he hates himself for allowing it to show. Can’t he at least salvage some scrap of dignity from the pathetic state to which he’s been reduced, yearning to be the plaything of a vampire?

Elijah’s arms have been hanging loosely at his sides. Now his thumbs start to pick at the cuticles of his ring and middle fingers, which are torn ragged as if worrying at them is an old habit. 

Funny that he’s never before noticed this small imperfection in an otherwise perfect being, Sean thinks, staring in fascination at the small, flicking movements. It has an odd effect on him, as if he’s seeing Elijah through a filter that removes his otherness. He seems suddenly young and vulnerable, not ancient and immortal. Against his will, Sean’s heart softens.

Then Elijah says the last two words Sean would ever have expected him to say. “I’m sorry.” He lifts his hands in a gesture of supplication, more shocking somehow than if he’d lunged for Sean’s throat with fangs bared. “You must understand that it has been a very long time since I last took a lover or allowed myself to bond with a human.”

“But I _don’t_ understand. You go to that club every night.” Maybe it’s the throbbing pain in his side that he’s finding increasingly hard to ignore. Maybe it’s the lingering light-headedness. But Elijah might as well be talking gibberish. 

“To feed, yes. It provides a ready source of what I need,” Elijah replies. “But I rarely take from the same person more than once. It is only their blood I crave, not their bodies or their conversation. I don’t ask their names. I don’t want to know who they are. It’s… easier that way.” A shadow passes over his face.

“You asked mine,” Sean points out. “You chose me for seven nights in a row.” He has counted those nights over and over in the time since, like pearls on a string, each one unique, each one of immeasurable beauty and value. 

“You were different from the others, Sean. That first night, I knew I wanted more from you than your blood as soon as we started to dance.” 

Sean tries to process this statement, reconcile it with everything that has happened. He can’t. “If that’s true then why did you choose someone else? You could have me every night. You must know that.” There’s no point in trying to pretend otherwise. 

Elijah regards Sean steadily. “Because I was harming you. I was greedy, taking blood from you without regard for your welfare. I could see you growing paler night by night; it had to stop. I had to choose another—for your sake, Sean. I might have killed you.”

Sean is stunned into silence. The weakness he’d been experiencing had nothing to do with ‘coming down with something’ and everything to do with blood loss. Why hadn’t he realized what was going on? He’d been a blood donor, for god’s sake. Or perhaps, as honesty compels him to admit, he’d been purposely blind to the effects of Elijah’s feeding, because he didn’t want it to stop.

But Elijah, who could have taken more, who could in fact have taken it all until Sean was drained dry, had stopped for Sean’s sake. He’d put Sean before himself. He isn’t the amoral being Sean has judged him to be. He has a conscience. He suffers, too. 

With his eyes now truly open and aware, Sean notices details he hadn’t before, signs of Elijah’s suffering, such as the color of his lips, which are not crimson but pink, and the near transparency of his skin, as if it were no more than damp rice paper that could tear at the slightest touch.

“How long has it been since you last fed?” he asks, concerned. 

Elijah says quietly, “Four nights. I wanted you, not any of those others… they repelled me.”

Without hesitation Sean unbuttons his torn, bloodstained shirt and pulls it and his ruined jacket away, exposing his side that he had been so afraid to look at before. “This should help a little at least.” 

The cut is shallow, except in one spot just beneath his breast, where the knife’s tip had bit more deeply. Blood oozes sluggishly from the wound in a viscous trail that runs down his ribcage through the smears left by his shirt that has soaked up some of it. Normally, the sight would have appalled and nauseated him; he’s never had much of a head for blood. But now he sees it only as a means of giving nourishment to Elijah, who is starving.

Elijah’s eyes are riveted to the blood; Sean can see the hunger in them. But Elijah says, “No. It would be wrong. This isn’t why I offered to help you, Sean.” He tears his gaze away and meets Sean’s eyes: anguish, desire and fierce determination war within him. His hands clench into fists. “I want to prove to you that I can be trusted.” 

“You don’t have to prove it. I already know.” Sean smiles crookedly. “Look, I’m bleeding, it’s not your fault, and it’s only going to go to waste. So drink it already, would you?”

With a small sob, Elijah gives in, kneeling between Sean’s thighs. He rests his deceptively small, delicate looking hands on them and leans in to lap at a crimson trickle just above the waistband of Sean’s trousers. A shudder runs through him, and his fingers tighten convulsively, biting into Sean’s quadriceps. Leaning closer, he fastens his mouth onto Sean’s side and sucks away the blood with lips and tongue in gentle, rhythmic tugs. His silky hair, still damp from the rain, brushes sensuously against Sean’s ribcage and abdomen, but instead of arousal, what Sean experiences is an aching tenderness. This isn’t about sex, but about love.

When he’s cleaned away the blood, Elijah shifts his mouth to the lower end of the diagonal slash across Sean’s ribs. Sean feels the familiar light prick of his eyeteeth as he uses their secretions to seal the wound. When he reaches the deeper cut, where the blood still wells up, Elijah pauses, resting his forehead against Sean’s chest.

“Sean,” he whispers raggedly, breath hot against his skin. “I—I don’t know if I can do this without feeding. I’m too hungry.”

“Then feed. Take what you need. I’ll be all right.” Sean cups his palm at the back of Elijah’s skull, sliding his fingers into the damp strands of his hair and gently urging him on.

Elijah concedes defeat and starts to drink, but far sooner than Sean suspects he might otherwise have done, he stops and carefully closes the wound. Only a thread-fine red line remains on Sean’s ribs and it is virtually pain free. 

“Thank you,” Sean whispers, and Elijah slides his arms around Sean’s waist and rests his cheek over his heart. They remain like that for some minutes, while Sean strokes Elijah’s bowed head over and over in a soothing rhythm. 

When Elijah finally stirs and looks up, his cheeks are flushed pale pink and his lips have darkened to ruby red. “I vowed never to let myself become close to another human,” he says. “But even though I know it would be better for both of us if I never saw you again after tonight, I don’t think I have the strength now to give you up.”

Sean bends down and kisses Elijah for the first time full on the mouth. He tastes his blood mixed with a dark and dangerous flavor that is Elijah’s own, but he doesn’t flinch. “I don’t want you to give me up. Elijah, I love you.”

But Elijah only looks sorrowful. “There was someone else who loved me once. He couldn’t bear the thought of parting from me when death came to claim him, and I lived on, immortal. So he begged me to change him into one like myself so that we might never be parted.” His eyes grow unfocused, lost in memory. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer even though I warned him of the consequences.”

“What consequences?” Sean asks. A part of him doesn’t want to hear the answer, but he knows he must.

“We’re solitary beings by necessity, Sean. There are no other vampires in this city. If one came here, I’d drive him away, or die in the attempt. We don’t—we _can’t_ —share our territory. But he insisted it would be different with us, and I, like a fool, believed him. I gave him his wish.” Elijah falls silent. Sean waits with a sense of dread. Finally, he says: “I killed him. He tried to drive me out of the city, but I was stronger and more experienced, so I killed him.”

“Oh Elijah.”

“From that time on, I kept my distance from humans, taking only what I needed to survive and nothing more. Until I met you.” Elijah reaches up and lightly touches the corner of Sean’s left eye. “Your eyes… they are so beautiful. They remind me of still water when sunlight falls on it through green leaves. It has been a very long time since I walked outside in the light of day, but when I look into your eyes, I can remember how warm the sun felt on my shoulders.”

Sudden tears threaten; Sean blinks them back and says, “Then for as long as I have left on this earth, let that be my gift to you."

"Sean, it won't be easy," Elijah warns. 

"Nothing worthwhile is," he replies, and kisses Elijah's palm.

~*~

A breeze riffles the pages of the book Sean is reading. The amplified sounds of traffic in the street five stories below penetrate his consciousness. He looks behind him to discover the living room window that had been firmly shut and locked is now wide open, and the filmy beige curtains on either side are fluttering inward, bringing the soft scent of the summer night with them. 

“Hello, Sean,” says a familiar, beloved voice.

Sean’s head snaps forward. Elijah, barefoot and dressed in a flowing white shirt and tight black leather pants, stands before him, where seconds earlier that space had been empty. 

Sean shuts his book and sets it aside. “Most people come in the traditional way,” he remarks as he gets to his feet. “You know, through the front door.”

Elijah smiles, revealing a hint of pointed eyeteeth. “I like my way better.”

Sean smiles back, his pulse beginning to race. “So do I.”

His blue eyes burning with an electric fire, Elijah holds out his hand to Sean. “Dance with me,” he says.

They dance.

~end~


End file.
